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Let me start by saying that it is a mighty rare occurrence when I have ALL THE THINGS to make something…ANYTHING…without someone having to go to the grocery store first. And by rare I mean never.

So imagine my delight when I realized that some bizarre thing was happening in the Kitchen yesterday after work when, as I was googling something to do with lemons, lo and behold, I came across a recipe for baby cheesecakes. Now I’m a sucker for cheesecake. It is, bar none, my favorite dessert…the New York kind…not all marbled with chocolate and raspberries and Reese’s pieces and Butterfingers. Not that there is anything wrong with those cheesecakes, but I’m just a cheesecake purist, which is probably because the only cheesecake I ever had growing up was the one my Mom would bake out of her Ladies’ Home Journal Cookbook. Back in those days your kids were your food processor, so it was always my job to crunch up the zweiback toast to make the crust, which was this rye toast that was hard as concrete that people used to give to their kids to teeth with before anyone was afraid of their kids breaking off a big chunk of rye toast and choking to death.

ANYWAY. As I looked at the recipe for these little Mini New York Cheesecakes, I got sort of excited because LOOKIT I HAVE ALL THESE THINGS

and really…if you have all the things to make cheesecake, just do it already.

The thing I remember most about the cheesecake of my childhood was that it took FOREVER…which is why these are so FANTASTIC. I’ll bet it didn’t take me 10 minutes to throw everything together, including making the graham cracker crust…and only 15 minutes in the oven. The recipe said to let them chill in the frig for four hours, but let’s be honest.

That didn’t happen.

I found the recipe here, but here it is. And here are my instructions: Put whatever you are going to put on the bottom on the bottom of the cupcake liner and mix all the other things and dump it in. That easy.

6 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 large egg

¼ cup + 2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon lemon juice

4 Nilla wafers (or other small cookies)

now, she made a delicious-looking sauce with brown sugar and sour cream, but I made mine with sour cream and sugar and vanilla, but like she says, there is no end to what you could put on top of these. even fruit.

Of course, because there are THREE of us, I doubled the recipe and had enough filling for NINE mini cakes! THE JOY!